by David Thorne
‘No problems,’ says Gabe, putting out a hand to shake. ‘It’s good to meet you.’
Petroski puts his out, but his wrist is just a stump so shiny with scar tissue that it looks as if it is wrapped in cling film. He looks at it ruefully then smiles at Gabe, and although the smile looks ghastly in that wrecked face, there is also a warmth in his eyes that softens the horror of it. He holds out his left hand instead and Gabe swaps hands, shakes.
‘Some pair,’ Gabe says. ‘I lost a leg over there.’
Petroski laughs and I can see his molars. ‘Not grown back?’
‘Not yet,’ says Gabe. ‘Give it time.’
Petroski looks at the stump of his wrist again. ‘Grow,’ he tells it. Then he looks at me, looks at Major Strauss. ‘I’m James Petroski,’ he says.
We introduce ourselves and Petroski salutes Major Strauss with his stump before he catches himself, remembers that he is now a civilian, that he no longer has a hand to salute with. He smiles, shakes his head.
‘Old habits.’
‘Once a soldier,’ says Major Strauss.
‘Tell me about it,’ says Petroski. He steps aside. ‘Go in. I’ll make tea. Then we’ll talk.’
James Petroski tells us that the military is in his blood: his great-grandfather had escaped Poland and flown Spitfires in the Second World War, claimed to have shot down nine German fighters although Petroski suspects that was an exaggeration, probably an outrageous one. Petroski had decided to go into the army rather than the air force and had been a sergeant posted in Afghanistan when his career had ended.
He tells us that he had been in the back of a Warthog armoured vehicle, crossing a bridge over a river in Helmand Province when the bridge had been blown up by an IED and the vehicle had tipped into the river. It landed upside down and falling equipment and unconscious soldiers had blocked the doors, leaving them trapped and disorientated in the dark as it sank beneath the water.
‘Burning fuel was leaking, I don’t know where from, and it was all over me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t even lift a hand to beat out the flames.’
Soldiers in following vehicles had climbed down the banks of the river to get to the soldiers, to pull them out of the wreckage. But the Taliban had hidden a sniper up in the hills above the river and every time a soldier got close, the sniper shot him.
‘They were doing their best but they couldn’t get to us. Inside soldiers were screaming, some were already under water, nobody could move. The smell of burning people…’ He shakes his head. ‘The vehicle kept filling up with water, soon it was up to my nose and I couldn’t move my head, could only lie there until it covered me.’
Petroski is sitting on an armchair in his living room, Major Strauss and Gabe across from him on a tired yellow sofa that looks as if it was rescued from the side of a road. I am standing, as there are no more chairs. His living room is lit by a bare bulb and there is little else in the room: a low table, a TV on a pile of magazines. Petroski drinks tea and smiles at us.
‘Yep. First I caught fire, then I drowned. Could say I was having a bad day.’
He tells us that it is good for him to talk about what happened; that the more he talks about it, the less it eats away at him. It is something the psychiatrists had suggested: a way to demythologise the events of that day, take away their power.
‘Eventually they located the sniper and put down machine gun fire, dragged us out. Some of the soldiers needed resuscitating but nobody died inside that vehicle. Two were killed trying to get us out.’ For the first time the vitality and warmth leaves Petroski. His head lowers in unconscious respect as he remembers their sacrifice. ‘Got to remember that I was one of the lucky ones.’
Looking at him, at what is left of his face, it is hard to believe that luck has shone on him. But I suspect that James Petroski is one of those men to whom every day is a blessing, who deals exclusively in silver linings. I can feel only admiration for him.
‘So,’ says Gabe.
‘Right,’ says Petroski. ‘7 Platoon.’
‘I’ve brought Daniel so that he can witness what you say. Make it official. Are you okay with that?’
Petroski nods.
‘That way, they’ve got less room to manoeuvre. Can’t really refuse to reopen the inquest.’
‘7 Platoon,’ says Petroski. ‘I never served with soldiers I didn’t like before. But that mob, I hated being under fire with them.’
‘Didn’t trust them?’ says Major Strauss.
‘I’ll be honest,’ says Petroski. ‘Most of them, they fucking terrified me. Sir.’
‘You don’t need to sir me,’ says Major Strauss.
‘Sorry,’ Petroski says, nearly adds ‘sir’ again, swallows it in time. ‘I don’t know what it was. What they’d seen, what they’d done. But they’d lost that humanity that any decent soldier needs.’
He tells us some of the stories he’d heard from them; an Afghani interpreter who had travelled with them and they’d befriended, who was later kidnapped, beheaded and left at their base’s perimeter. Members of their platoon who had been killed or injured by IEDs, always the IEDs, placed on roads and made with low metal content so that they were almost impossible to detect. The daily gamble they all took as they patrolled booby-trapped streets, death always just a step away, meted out by an enemy that rarely showed its face.
‘But we all faced the same dangers,’ said Gabe. ‘All of us. They didn’t have it any different.’
Petroski nods. ‘I know. Sometimes I think you just get a bad bunch. All the wrong people together. They feed off each other. Spent too much time on their own and…’ He runs out of words.
‘Went bad,’ says Gabe. ‘I know. Felt the same thing.’
‘Just hardness. Killing was all they cared about.’
‘So you heard them talk about Creek?’ says Major Strauss.
‘Right,’ says Petroski. ‘Yeah. Overheard them talking about killing him. Creek shouldn’t have been mixed up with that lot. He was a good man, an intelligent soldier, stubborn like you wouldn’t believe.’
‘Yes,’ says Gabe. ‘Wouldn’t be told.’
‘Like a dog with a bone, that boy,’ says Petroski. ‘They hated him.’
‘Tell us what happened,’ I say. ‘Keep it simple. Just the relevant details.’
Petroski nods, silent as he goes back over what he heard, organises it in his head. ‘I wasn’t with them long,’ he says. ‘But I was with them when Lance Corporal Creek was killed. We’d been out on a patrol and got into contact just outside a village. Half of us were behind a wall, the other half were taking cover a few hundred metres away in the trees. Returning fire, nothing unusual. It was all over in minutes; the enemy just took off. Probably only been four or five of them, saw us, thought they’d have a pop.’
Petroski pauses, drinks tea. ‘They didn’t seem concerned, 7 Platoon. About Creek. He’d been with the group in the trees and he was dead, shot through the head. Nobody said much. A couple of them carried him back to base, but there was no atmosphere. Usually with that lot, one of them got hurt and they’d want revenge. There wasn’t any of that.’
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘But was there anything specific you saw or heard?’
‘When we got back to base, I heard Banyan talking to a couple of others.’
‘Who?’
‘Shine and Burgess. They were laughing. Banyan said, “Yeah, I gave Creek the good news.” Shine said to him, “Got to the front of the queue?” and Banyan said, “Man had it coming,” and Shine and Burgess both agreed.’
‘That’s it?’ says Major Strauss.
‘That’s enough,’ says Gabe. ‘If he’s prepared to swear to it.’
Petroski nods. ‘Course, sir.’
‘One thing,’ I say. ‘A credibility issue. How come you’ve never said anything before?’
‘I had an appointment with the colonel in charge of the company,’ says Petroski. ‘It’s not like I wasn’t going to say anything. Then, next day…’ He shrugs, puts hi
s spread fingers up to his ruined face. ‘Never got to see him.’
We are ready to leave, standing in Petroski’s hall. The wallpaper is peeling off the ceiling and there is mould in the corners; it looks like a ninety-year-old man recently died here. The place needs work, a lot of it.
‘You bought this place?’ says Gabe.
‘Yeah,’ says Petroski. He looks about him. ‘Estate agents call it potential, right?’
‘You’re a long way from people,’ says Major Strauss. ‘Is that healthy?’
Petroski shrugs and I see a sadness in his good eye. ‘I guess not. But you know? I can live with looking like this. It hardly hurts any more and sure I’ve got a missing hand, but…’ He stops, and this is the first awkwardness I have felt in his company.
‘I shouldn’t have asked,’ says Major Strauss. ‘Not my business.’
‘It’s just,’ says Petroski and again he falters. His face does not betray his emotion but as I look at him a single tear escapes his eye, runs down his creased and melted skin. I wonder if he has parents, what his mother feels when she looks at the legacy of the awful pain he has been made to suffer. It must be heartbreaking. He blinks, clears his eye. ‘Other people. The way they stare. It’s not fair on them. On me.’ He breathes in, a shudder of grief in his throat. ‘Other people,’ he says.
Gabe puts a hand on Petroski’s shoulder, grips him hard. ‘I think you are remarkable,’ he says. ‘It’s a privilege to have met you.’
Petroski smiles, bares his gums, shakes his head, but Gabe has got him in his gaze and will not let him get away, will not allow Petroski his self-deprecation. ‘You are an example to me. Thank you.’
At this Petroski smiles for real; coming from a man with Gabe’s reputation and rank, I guess that it must mean something. He does not answer but I hope that Gabe’s words register, and that they help sustain him. I cannot imagine how hard it must be for him just to wake up every day, face a world that flinches rather than look at him.
He watches us go, raises a hand as we pull away, once again backlit by his hall’s bare bulb.
None of us speak in the car, driving through the darkness in silence, each occupied with his own thoughts. I cannot help but dwell on James Petroski’s injuries, examine them and what they must mean for him. He is dreadful to look at but he is a good man – honest and warm and aware only of his luck, not his misfortune. I compare him to Connor Blake – spoilt, indulged and impossibly good-looking – and it only makes me hate him more. How is it that of the two of them, it is Blake who has become such a monster?
24
HOW MANY EYEWITNESSES can you fit in a toilet? It is a question I am asking myself as I look through the witness statements collected by the police following the murder of Karl Reece, allegedly at the hands of Connor Blake. They are piled on my desk, thirty-two accounts of what the customers at Jamie’s Bar saw that night, what they had to say about the brutal act that had played out right in front of them; an act which, I was sure, none of them would ever be able to forget.
I am in my office and it is early, not yet light outside; I again left Maria asleep, drove though empty streets full of the previous evening’s debris, broken glass and spilled blood. But now, with Blake’s file in front of me, my mind is on that night, the dark early hours when a promising young man was beaten to death for an imagined slight so trivial it would have gone unremarked by the majority of people. There is no light in this story.
Jamie’s Bar has been around for years, decades even – a smart storefront bar visited by locals who, generally, know one another and have grown up together. Anyone they don’t know, chances are they’ll know a brother, father, cousin. Clearly, everybody there knew the Blakes; knew what happens if you crossed them, if you dared implicate one of them in murder.
Of the witness statements I have read so far, twenty-eight of them claim to have been in the toilets while it happened and could not recall having seen anything, neither the build-up to the attack on Karl Reece nor the aftermath, as if it had all happened in another place entirely. Three simply did not say anything, refused to speak. All the accounts are written in the elaborately formal style of police statements: witnesses ‘have no knowledge of the assailant’s identity’ or ‘confirm their presence in the premises’ facilities during said assault’. But behind these statements is another, less precise sentiment: a fear of speaking out, a fervent wish to have been anywhere but there, to have witnessed anything but that.
That, the coroner’s report confirms, is the savage beating of Karl Reece followed by a stamp to the back of his neck, which snapped two vertebrae and killed him instantly. The coroner was sure that it was a stamp that had been the cause of death. The tread of the killer’s shoes was clearly visible on Karl Reece’s skin. Prada, she concluded. This season’s. I would expect nothing less of Connor Blake.
Throughout all of this detail I can sense Blake’s presence in the gloom of my office, as close as if he is smirking at my shoulder. This wall of silence, the abject excuses of the witnesses, the prosaic details of the coroner’s report that somehow only make the reality of what happened more unpalatable; the box that Blake’s former solicitors gave me seems a documentation of all the indifference, cruelty and self-interest that society so often stands accused of. And at the centre of it is Blake – arrogant, entitled and as close to evil as I can imagine.
I push the papers aside and pick up my cup of coffee long gone cold, wondering what exactly I am going to say to Blake when I see him. Whether there is any way I can get out of this mess that I am in.
Connor Blake has one black eye, although it is not closed and I can see a glint of mischief in it as he is pushed through the door of our interview room by the same guard who had manhandled him in last time. This time the guard pushes Blake with more force and Blake nearly loses his footing, cuffed as he is.
Blake looks at me, frowns. ‘You going to say anything?’
‘Is there a reason for this rough treatment?’ I ask the guard mildly.
‘Yeah,’ the guard says. He is in his fifties with short white hair, has the nose of an ex-boxer, big hands and a neck as wide as his head. ‘Your client’s been causing trouble.’
‘I notice he has a black eye,’ I say. ‘Care to talk me through that one?’
‘Can do,’ says the guard. ‘If you insist.’
In truth, I do not care either way; I have only been playing the role of concerned advocate. But I nod all the same. Since I have started, I might as well play the role convincingly.
‘Fight in the kitchen couple of days ago,’ the guard says. ‘Where Blake’s been working. I say working.’
Blake sniggers and I wonder how the guard can resist hitting him. I am struggling myself.
‘Seems your client’s taken against an inmate called Chambers. Big black fella, in for armed robbery. So Chambers has hit him. Fucking fair play, I say.’
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘If you could get to the point.’
‘The point,’ says the guard. ‘Right. Point is, Chambers give him this black eye. So next day, Blake’s heated up a wire on the gas stove and put it through Chambers’ eye. Right through the middle.’
‘I did no such thing, by the way,’ says Blake. He is leaning up against the wall opposite me and grinning as if he is in possession of a marvellous joke he can barely contain.
‘Well, Chambers ain’t talking,’ says the guard. ‘Won’t see out of that eye again either.’ He shakes his head and looks at the floor, and I half expect him to spit. ‘Fucking Blakes.’
‘What was that?’ Blake has his arms folded but he is no longer smiling and his chin is tilted up in challenge. ‘What you fucking say?’
Perhaps it is because the guard has had enough for one day and lacks the will to challenge Blake. I hope so, do not want to consider the other possibility – that the Blakes’ reputation is such that this guard hesitates to speak ill of them even within the sacrosanct walls of this prison. Whichever, he turns away from Blake, says, ‘Nothing.�
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‘What I thought you said,’ says Blake.
The guard is pushing open the door but at this he stops, perhaps recalls who he is and what he stands for. He raises his shoulders, turns deliberately and says to me with a glance of frank disgust, ‘How you can stand to work for scum like that.’
He walks through the door, pulls it to quickly behind him, and as it closes I feel as if it is me rather than Blake who is the prisoner in this place.
‘So,’ Blake says, taking a seat. ‘Name. Address. Go.’
‘What was it your previous lawyer said to you?’
‘Said he couldn’t give it to me.’
‘He was right. He couldn’t.’ Blake is watching me closely. This is his shot at getting out of here, his chance to get at the only witness against him. He is perfectly still and I sense that he is holding his breath. ‘I can’t give it to you either,’ I say.
Blake closes his eyes, does not say anything for a moment. ‘Daniel. You don’t want to do this.’
‘Not me,’ I say. ‘They’ve got him or her in special measures. Protected identity. I don’t know who it is.’
‘No.’ Blake shakes his head. ‘No, no, fucking no, no, no.’ He raises a finger, points it at me. ‘No.’
‘Listen,’ I say. ‘This is what happens when the police have reason to believe a witness might be intimidated.’ Blake has his eyes closed but he is still pointing his finger at me like a drunk trying to make a point. ‘They protect their name; give them an initial. No address, no name, nothing.’
‘You know I can do anything. Kill her, hurt her. Make it so you won’t recognise her. Anything I say will happen.’
‘Are you listening? What you’re asking me to do – I can’t do it.’ I cannot get through to this man but I need to, need him to understand. He must understand.
‘They always do what I say.’ Now he has his eyes open and his clear blue gaze is an invasion; I can feel it under my skin, probing places he has no right to be.